Okeil: The harsh and unsafe working conditions at construction sites in Qatar has claimed the lives of thousands of migrant workers
Al-Banna: Qatar has used the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to get rid of hundreds of migrant workers
Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights has issued a new report entitled "Amid Ruins of 2022 FIFA World Cup: Rights of Migrant Workers 180 Days before the World Cup", shedding light on the violations committed against foreign workers in Qatar. According to the report, since Qatar won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, about 6,750 migrant workers have died in the course of the construction, as a result of inhuman working conditions which included long working hours and significant heat stress.
The report indicated that Qatar continues to violate the rights of migrant workers, especially with the increase in the number of expatriate workers. As the work on constructing such mega projects continues, the Qatari authorities continue to practice systematic violations against incoming foreign workers, who became subjected to passport confiscation without any control or a fair law governing this practice, in addition to the continued recruitment of workers with exorbitant fees, and the prevailing practices of deceptive recruitment which continue unchecked or punished. Migrant workers are prohibited from joining trade unions, and they are not entitled to strike, or to claim their rights verbally, in writing, or in any other form.
Besides, they are paid insignificant wages, less than six dollars a day, and their salaries are often delayed. Migrant workers in Qatar live in inhabitable overcrowded camps in the middle of the desert, lacking all decent living conditions and basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation, and many of them have contracted diseases. Workers are also at risk of forced labor, movement restrictions, in addition to not being able to change their jobs without their employer’s permission, and may face criminalization for “absconding” from work, or even get their passports confiscated.
In this context, the international human rights expert and president of Maat said that the harsh and unsafe working conditions in construction sites in Qatar have claimed the lives of thousands of migrant workers, as the number of migrant workers who died on construction sites since Qatar won the right to host the World Cup has reached nearly seven thousand. This is a shocking number that calls for urgent and immediate intervention by the international community to investigate the circumstances of such deaths. Unfortunately, we fear that the total death toll is significantly higher, as the most recent statistics issued was a year and a half ago, thus, the actual number of deaths may be double or more than double the mentioned figure.
Okeil called on the Qatari authorities to expedite accession to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CRMW), and to harmonize national legislation and laws with international treaties and charters to which Qatar is committed, and to abide by Qatar National Vision 2030, which considers migrant workers an indispensable component of the country's economic development.
For his part, Muhammad Al-Banna, a researcher at Maat, said that despite the Qatari government’s claim that some reforms have been made to labor laws, there is no governmental oversight on the implementation of these laws, especially in the absence of the issue of inspection by the Qatari Ministry of Labor on construction sites, which makes these reforms ineffective. Al-Banna added that the State of Qatar has found, in the outbreak of the Coronavirus, an excuse to get rid of hundreds of workers who constitute a burden on it, after it was prosecuted by human rights because of their miserable working conditions. The Qatari authorities told some foreign workers that they would be taken somewhere for coronavirus tests, but in fact they arrested and expelled dozens of foreign workers, and none of these workers received any explanation for such treatment, and they were unable to appeal their detention or expulsion.
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